Rest of Italy

Venice is for short people ( you know who you are!).

A launch named Joy

Away from the touris route in Venice.

One of the five villages in the Cinque Terre (Five Villages).

Pesto and pasta a beautiful union

Pizza in Santa Margherita. Oh bliss.

Portofino (where very rich yacht owners hang out).

Rome

St Peters Basilica (it is huge)

No boobtubes or miniskirts in St Peters (no amputees either please)

A lovely girl and some famous fountain in Rome

Old ruined stuff

What a handsome gladiator at the Colosseum

Greece

Aimee in Athens

(Double click on this Mum and it will get bigger)

The Red Beach, Santorini (like the rocks in a BBQ - very bad for shoes)

Postcard views of the Caldera (big hole left by volcano now filled with ocean), Santorini.

A hot water spring they said (yeah right!)

Not just for the tourists, a working Donkey on Santorini

The Rain in Spain

Falls mainly on us.

Seriously it is lovely and sunny today but we have had some fantastic rain storms in the last week.

I will run the blog backwards and see how far we get back in time by the end of this Chapter. No photos sorry but we will put some up in a few weeks when we get back to Ireland.

The current plan is to head to Portugal in a couple of days (Lagos and Lisbon) and then perhaps travel to Scotland for a week or so before heading back to Galway.


Seville

We are currently in Sevilla (Seville to us foreign folks) and after a couple of days of rest and mucking around we are back on our feet and enjoying ourselves.

Today we had chocolate con churros (hot choc and fried donut thing) for lunch and had about 300 times our recommended daily saturated fat intake. YUM

We then went and had a tour of the Bull Ring which was interesting. No actual bull fight which was good as the Bull never wins and they kill 6 every fight. Theoretically a really good bull can get pardoned early in the fight but that has not happened since 1964.

We are in a nice quiet dorm room in a separate building from the main hostel so no Bar noise for us. We also have some other nice travellers in our dorm to talk to each day.

Yesterday we went to the Alcazar which is a palace wih lovely gardens and ponds etc. A very pleasant stroll indeed and a bit of silliness chasing eachother in the maze.


Barcelona

We spent three nights in Barcelona and had a lot fun despite the rain.

We went on a cycle tour of the city assuming the rain would ease but ended up soaked to our skin. It was still good fun and we felt sufficiently Mad biking along the deserted beach in the rain. Out tour guide was a South African who is now a Kiwi citizen but currently lives in Barcelona. He said he didnt want a real job (he was a scuba instructor and prof guide type) but was changing his mind by the end of of our very wet tour. Apparently it is is usally the Brits that turn up in the rain.

We also went to a Paella and Sangria class with some others from the hostel and people they had meet on a walking tours (thank God for Aussies and Kiwis). Had a great time making sangria and tapas. the paella was cooked for us by a very entertaining woman and it was great fun.

Stayed at the best hostel ever ( the Alberguinn) where even the cleaning staff were happy to see you. We couldn´t find a single fault with it and they even found us a bed in a different hostel when they were full on our last night ( we hadn´t booked ahead).

Carcassonne

For my birthday we stayed in a lovely B and B in Carcassonne in France. It has a small medieval city which was very pretty. Our B and B was very posh and we got upgraded suites because they were quiet. It only had 8 shower heads in the shower (well more of a shower-room). Unfortunately they drained the hot water in about 4 minutes but it was nice to shower like a millionaire while it lasted.

Birthday lunch was glorious. Over three hours we had a set menu with Cassoulet which is the food of Gods. The sun came out and so did the red wine!

Nimes

We stayed one night in this sleepy little french town thanks to Mel´s recommendation. It was a lovely sunny day and we simply lay on the grass in the park. Luxury.

It also has a fully intact roman amphitheatre just sitting in the middle of town!

Nice

We stayed a couple of nights in Nice with its amazing long beach and promenade. Wild weather so no swimming but we did see a japanese tourist get soaked by a wave breaking over the rocks ( hee hee).

We went to Monaco for an afternoon and saw how the other half a percent live. So many huge launches with security crews and branded vehicles on the dock. Found the beach there deserted except for one slightly loony lady who was swimming (topless) on a grey cold day (we did wonder if she was going to keep swimming off into the ocean but luckily she was not that kind of loopy).

Santa Margerita

we spent five nights in this lovely part of the med but will leave this to the photos to explain later on. Pesto, Pizza and yachts (wished pedro was there).

Prior to that was Venice, Rome , Santorini and Athens.


Will dash off now for a Siesta

Love to all

Emmett (and Aimee, who is already asleep).

Photos

Some out of correct order photos for you all.

We are currently in Thessaloniki in Greece. Heading to Athens in the morning.




Aimee at Gallopoli


Being silly in the big silly horse out at Troy. Much more interesting than photos of rubble.


A fish merchant in Istanbul being followed by cats.

Tourist Delight as the locals call it.


The Blue Mosque


The Grand Bazaar. You do get lost!


The cliffs above Anzac Cove at Gallopoli


Bruges in Belgium.


Drinking Garre in Bruges.

Beer hall in Munich.


Making friends in Paris.

Spot the Eiffel Tower


Lunch from the market in Bruges.

From Barvaria and back again!

Hello,

We're back in Barvaria but this time we are in Munich! We haven't seen much of the city yet but thought we'd update on some of the other places we've been in the last little while.

Salzburg.

Salzburg the sound of music capital of Austria! Most Austrians apparently hate the film but are happy to take your money should you be a fan. We did the bus tour, a very light tour that plays the soundtrack and gives you trivia from the film to impress your friends with like: the mountain the VonTrapps escape over actually leads into Germany - not so smart eh?

The tour does take you out of the city and gives you a fantastic look at the mountain and lake regions that are breathtakingly beautiful.

Also in Austria we ate goulash and drank beer by the litre (literally) at a huge 2000 seat beer hall. The beer hall was an old monastry and was silient from the outside and with every door you opened it got noisier and noisier until you amost stumbled across hundreds of people drinking and laughing. It was awesome.

Cesky Krumlov.

From Salzberg we took the train to Linz where we were met by a van that drove us (at high speed and only choosing a side of the road when it had to) to the UNESCO world heritage site of CK. So the Czech Rep. are part of the EU but are not on the euro, which is great because you get 20 Kronnes to the euro. So we chilled for 4 days, ate like kings, saw the sites and still had ample left in our pockets for Prague. We even saw some sun and there are bears in the castle moat, yes bears!

Prague

Great city, did the walking tour but to be honest didn't fall in love with the place. Lots of pretty statues and buildings and cool easter markets. Oh and a million tourists.

Berlin

The home of modern design and a haven of great street art (old people call it grafitti) and architecture. Again we did a walking tour, Berlin has so much history that after five hours we're pretty sure our guide could have gone for another 5. We saw the wall and many other famous sites and heard the guides passionate rendition of how the wall finally came down. We climbed the Reichstag building (parliament) and at the top is a dome you can see the whole city from, and it's free.

We visited Sachenhausen concentration camp with a guide and while it was a grim day it was an important thing to do and we learnt a lot. It rained the entire tour making it even stranger and more somber.

We of course did some art and design site seeing, including the Bauhaus archives (bestill my design heart) and a fantastic ice sculpture exhibition.

Also while in town we saw Sophia and Ezekiel my old workmate and her husband.

Munich

Well we saw snow from the train and then we went out for dinner and had thai food for the first time in 10 months at least. We are on a (surprise surprise) walking tour today and we hope to soak up heaps because tomorrow we fly to Istanbul.

Holiday

Hello All!

No photos for today as awe are on free internet at the hostel so can't upload.

So what have we been up to............


Saturday 23rd: Travel to Paris.

Took most of the day to get there. No problems finding the hotel but we were tired and had a bit of culture shock. Had Indian for dinner as the area where our hotel was only had only two types of shop 1) African hair salons with so many people hanging around them and 2) Indian Restaurants?

Our hotel was great. It was super cheap but was super clean and not
very noisy at all.


Sunday:

We took a 3.5 hour walking tour of Paris. Our guide worked for
tips only. Her name was Mary and she was an American dramearly ona student
studying in Paris.

It was a really lovely sunny day and we even got sunburnt! Paris is amazing. You will all see the photos.

That night we also did the Mary's other free tour in the evening of Montmatre and Sacre Cour!

So after 5 hours of tours and walking across Paris a few times we were shattered.


Monday:

We climbed the bell tower of Notre Dame and went to the Louvre. There is simply too much in the Louvre to take in! We loved the building itself more than the collections within. If you ever go there remember to stop and look up occasionaly.

In the evening we climbed the Eiffel Tower ( no lifts for us!) and watched it light up while we were on it. We got to the bottom just in time for the sparkly light effect and got a good photo.

Tuesday:

We chilled at our hotel and had pain au chocolat and fresearly onh fruit for breakfast. We then put our bags in storage at the train station and went for a wander around what turned out to be the Wedding Attire and cheap jewellery district. early on

Catching the Thalys ( fast train)was easy except for the bomb scare which delayed us 30 minutes and saw us shuffled back and forth the along the platform by confused staff.

Had a brief (20 minutes or so) stop in Brussels where we easily bought a ticket for Bruges. Took a normal train with all the commuters out to Bruges (took about an hour) and walked to the Hostel.

Great hostel in Bruges with nice beds, good breakfast and free Internet (Lybeer Hostel).
early onearly on
We arrived for Beer Pong night. Beer Pong involves throwing ping pong balls along a table into plastic cups with beer in. the other team drinks the beer if you get the ball in there cup. Very American but given that there was a big group of them Yanks at the hostel it worked well. We ended up out a pub just with one American ( Mark, from DC) after we split off from Mark's
friends and a group of University girls (giggle giggle scream). Had the most amazing beers all night including Rochefort Trappist ( wow!).

We may catch up with Mark when we are in DC.

For some bizarre reason we had very sore heads the next morning. Went to the laundromat and did our washing. Had a very nice local help us when the change machine was broken and had a nice chat to him. They are all so helpful here and are very relaxed. Quite a contrast to Paris where they are so brisk.
early on
Bruges has about 100,000 people in the greater area and only about 30,000 in the town itself. They have about 3 million visitors a year though, so the place is bussling.

They had a market on with fruit, vege and meat. We bought lots of fruit ( as we did in Paris too) and marvelled at how different Ireland is despite being so connected with Europe. The price and quality of food so far has been fantastic compared to Ireland.

We made yummy Belgium sausages in pasta with broccoli. The sausages were cured and kind of half way between salami and a normal pork sausage. The lady at the butchery cart in the market handled big strings of them like rope.

Just loved Bruges ( also spelt Brugge or any variant you please, the locals don't care) and if you go there you have to have a Garre in De Garre in the Garre!

To explain, Garre is a beer which is only served in a bar called De Garre in an alleyway called the Garre.



Friday- The Netherlands

We decided to bypass Amsterdam initially and headed to a city called Utrecht in the Netherlands. Nice little (by dutch standards - 200 to 300 thousand) city with canals and even a "coffeshop" to smoke a joint in (full of the best selection of losers you will ever see through a window).

We stayed in a lovely B&B called the Hello B&B. Run by a nice guy called Joost who lived in London long enough to pick up a London accent. It was in a quiet street about 5 minutes from town. Fresh bread and eggs with their own little woolly hats on for breakfast.

Friday night we sat in a small cafe (bar) which was where the crowd our age hung out. It even played Fat Freddy´s Drop ( Kiwi band) on the stereo.

We then found an Italian restaurant run by Greek people for some cheap eats (something we had missed in Ireland).

On Saturday we caught the train to Amsterdam and did another free walking tour there ( same company as Paris).

What a strange strange place Amsterdam is. Very glad we went and did the walking tour but also very glad we hadn't set our hearts on staying there for long. Nice for a visit but when we had seen true relaxation in Bruges the kinds of relaxation offered in Amsterdam didn't compare.

Sunday - Germany

Caught a train to Cologne (or Köln as it is here) and stayed in an OK (but not great) hostel.

We went to Musuem Ludwig on the afternoon we got there. It was very cool. Modern art including Warhol, Polke, and Picasso ( I loved the Picasso's!).

Aimee was of course very happy running amok in modern art. You should have seen her face when she found the room full of giant flower stems!

We meet up with a guy called Josh from Perth (or a small town thereabouts) who is a Physio who had worked in Canada for 6 months to finance a trip early onacross South America and now Europe.


Monday-

It rained but that didn't stop Josh and Us meandering around Cologne. We didn't achieve a great deal but sorted out transport ( a ride-share for Josh leaving at 5am and a rail pass for Us) and made a big pasta meal for dinner with lots of vege in it.

That night Josh adopted a Japanese guy from his dorm and we went to a neighbourhood beer haus. We were told with typical German dry wit when we asked what types of beer they had that there was only One! This was almost true as it was actually brewery that made only one type.

Shogo from Japan had just finished his masters in mechanical engineering and was about to start a job at a small place that made motorbikes (Yamaha!). He had no idea what the job was about but that is the Japanese way.

So we drank beer out of little thin 200ml glasses which were replaced unless you put your coaster on top of your last one. Not a late night but a nice time.

Tuesday- Wurzburg

While we intially planned to go to Berlin early on, due to a Tourism Conference ( ah the irony), it is fairly booked out this week. We also bought a twin rail pass for Germany which covers Salzburg too so have a bit of freedom in what we can do. Point to point fairs are pricey in germany unless you buy a yearly ( I think?) discount card like the locals do. So when we found the twin rail passes which for 4 days cost about as much as 1.25 trips between major cities it made sense.

We are currently in Wurzburg in Bavaria. It is on the start of the "Romantic Road" through Franconia (the region). A nice place with vineyards right next to the city centre and Residence (palace type house) and a Fortress.

Yesterday we walked around the Residence gardens and the city centre and then chilled at the hostel with great cheap beer (Dunkel Weiss! Dark Wheat beer).

Currently Aimee is asleep but we will slowly head out to explore the Fortress and do some wine tasting. Hooray.

Hugs to all

Emmett